


Antiquities

by sortingthesockbasket



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Antique Shop, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Humor, Background Relationships, Genji is a Little Shit, Ghosts, How Do I Tag, Implied Fareeha "Pharah" Amari/Angela "Mercy" Ziegler - Freeform, Implied Genji Shimada/Tekhartha Zenyatta, M/M, McHanzo - Freeform, Rating May Change, ghost!McCree, help how do i appropriately tag, not really major character death because i mean he's already dead???, not sure i should tag background characters?, not sure i should tag those tho because they're pretty background?????, possible ghost boning???, there may or may not be a reincarnation later because i cannot sad, well only one ghost, who may or may not de-ghost in some form or fashion later, will add more characters as they show up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-08-12 04:59:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7921432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sortingthesockbasket/pseuds/sortingthesockbasket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hanzo Shimada runs an antiques shop with his brother, Genji. A mysterious crate arrives in his newest shipment of product containing artifacts from the days of the Wild West, along with an unexpected visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I have not played Overwatch, nor do I own the characters. My gf dragged me into this fandom kicking and screaming but idk it's kinda nice in here. Any inaccuracies are her fault lmao (jkjkjk) 
> 
>  
> 
> Please please please leave me a comment! This is a tester chapter to see if anyone's interested in this au. Happy shipping!

The bells over the door of Shimadas’ Antiques jingled merrily as Genji Shimada waltzed in, coffee in one hand and his phone in the other, a full twenty minutes late.

“So kind of you to deign to honor us with your presence,” his brother said dryly, looking up from his inventory books. 

Genji flashed him a cheerful grin and a casual, two-fingered salute. “Anything for you, _onii-chan_.” 

“Is that so?” _Ding!_ Closing the old-fashioned register, Hanzo picked up the broom leaning against the wall behind a display case, swung the movable portion of the counter up, and emerged from behind it, holding out the handle for Genji to take. “Here, then. I have new inventory to catalogue. I expect that sidewalk clean by the time I’ve finished, brother.” 

Genji groaned, shoving his phone in his pocket. “It’s a sidewalk! You’re not supposed to be able to eat off it!” 

Hanzo was unfazed. “Sidewalk. Clean. If I find out you’ve ignored a customer because you were too busy listening to those new-fangled earmuffs of yours, I will personally see to it that your skull joins the window display.” 

Genji huffed, taking the broom, and Hanzo turned on his heel, making his way through the charmingly, deliberately haphazard rows of books and lovingly-maintained furniture, with its calculated arrays of curios ranging from locked display cases of jewelry and animal skulls to lamps and other appliances. The real jewels, of course, were kept in a locked safe far from here. The fakes were lovingly created by Hanzo’s boisterous freeloader roommate, who had nothing but time on his obnoxiously massive hands. 

Grumbling to himself, Genji shuffled outside with his broom, slurping his coffee and setting the half-full cup on the windowsill so he could take a selfie to send to Zenyatta, who had encouraged him to find a job in the first place. 

Shimadas’ Antiques was tucked away in a foggy, grimy corner of the city, noticeable if only because it was aggressively clean, its windows sparkling clean and free of so much as a scratch, its storefront regularly painted. Gold lettering spelling out the name of the store arched across the multipaned front windows, adding a pleasant finishing touch to the old-fashioned air of the store. 

Throwing off the tasteful old-time atmosphere someone had clearly worked very hard to create was Genji himself, dressed in bright neon chartreuse, standing outside the shop and angling his cell phone this way and that to get the best angles on both himself and the storefront. Finally satisfied with the shot, he sent it to his friend, stuffing his phone into his pocket and taking another slurp of iced coffee to fortify him against the horrendous bore that was sweeping the sidewalk. Plugging in his headphones, he selected one of Lucio’s latest tracks--the Brazilian artist’s music never failed to rejuvenate him. His head bobbed in time to the lively music thrumming through the earbuds tucked into his ears, the earbuds he knew would piss off his brother. As said brother was inside taking inventory of their latest acquisitions, however, Genji wasn’t particularly worried. Instead, he was looking forward to the end of his shift and getting to see a dear friend of his who was arriving from Nepal. 

Inside, Hanzo was poring over the crates the truck had brought in this morning. Most intriguing was a crate of things dug up from an old, abandoned ranch outside of a ghost town in New Mexico, so Hanzo saved it for last. Once he’d worked through his other crates--more standard fare, old lamps, tables, mirrors, things dug out of grandmothers’ attics, some of which he kept, and some he consigned to either charity or the junk heap--he finally pried open that crate, loosing a cloud of dust motes that danced in the air, glowing under the warm yellowy lights, carrying with them the particular musty scent of history. Inside lay things better suited to a museum than an antique shop: A pair of cowboy boots, dusty and well-used, but well cared-for and molded to the shape of some long-dead _vaquero_ ’s feet, and though they had to be over a hundred years old, the spurs on the back didn’t show so much as a speck of rust; a beat-up leather journal was also included--though a brief parsing of the contents showed that the owner had kept business records in it, with brief, often humorous notes in the margins in cramped, blocky handwriting discussing what was being bought and sold--interspersed with very few personal entries; a tarnished brass pocket watch with cracked, dirty glass over the face; a broad-brimmed hat with spare bullets and a golden badge on the hatband; and, at the very bottom of the crate, something wrapped in a ratty old red poncho or blanket of some kind edged in a pattern of faded gold. Looking at it, splotched and obviously well-traveled as it was, Hanzo got the distinct feeling it should smell of dirt and sweat and tobacco smoke. 

Shaking the peculiar notion off, he unwrapped the cloth to reveal a gleaming leather belt with an ornate, solid-gold buckle the size of Hanzo’s palm. Hanging from the holster on the side was a revolver. Unlike the other contents of the crate, the belt and the gun looked as though they’d been made yesterday, the leather strong and supple in Hanzo’s hand. The gun itself was startlingly hot to the touch, as if it had been left out in the New Mexico sun with no chance to cool off. It was, however, in mint condition, despite being as old as everything else in the crate. Holding it in his hands, Hanzo knew he could aim and fire at the glass vase from 1944 and the gun would work perfectly, if loudly and with the customary cloud of smoke born of guns that old. 

Hanzo wasn’t a man given to flights of fancy, but holding this gun in his hands brought harsh sunlight beating relentlessly down on his shoulders, an arid gust of wind blowing into his face, and the acrid, burned-peat taste of a hand-rolled cigar in his mouth. 

A shiver chased down Hanzo’s spine, and he shoved it back into the holster as if it had bitten him. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants, and with the phantom desert heat gone from his perception, he felt chilled to the bone. In as orderly a fashion as he could muster, he set the gun beside the rest of the crate’s contents and hurried out of the back room, clipboard in hand. He needed to get away from those artifacts for a while, away from the sense of a long-awaited doom finally arriving that had settled in his gut, a leaden, heavy certainty, and refused to leave. 

The feeling of foreboding was only slightly mitigated by the door closing behind him. Refusing to tolerate this nonsense, Hanzo firmly shoved the lingering cloud of it aside, carrying himself tall and proud, poking his head out the door to scold his younger brother for playing the broom like a guitar instead of sweeping. 

“Genji!” he hissed. His brother, lost in the music he wasn’t supposed to be listening to, didn’t hear him, so Hanzo stepped outside into the cool golden light of late morning in autumn, cuffing Genji over the back of his head. “Cease this childish behavior at once and get back to work. You were the one who asked me for a job.” 

Genji wrinkled his nose, scowling. “Yeah, but that was before I knew you’d turned into a grumpy old man,” he complained, pulling out his earbuds one at a time. “You’re barely over thirty!” 

Hanzo’s expression grew stormy, anger flaring in his gut in response to Genji’s taunt burning away the remaining unease. “And _you_ are behaving like a twelve-year-old,” he snapped. “This shouldn’t have taken five minutes, and I’ve managed to complete inventory in the time it’s taken you to completely abandon your assigned task.” 

As the two brothers devolved into bickering, the temperature in the storeroom dropped, slowly but surely. An old grandfather clock tolled as the sun rose to its zenith, only made more serene and solemn with age, and the temperature dropped, the clock face frosting over. A figure flickered into being beside the crate that had captivated Hanzo’s attention, its red serape, edged with gold patterning, flapping in a breeze that wasn’t there, its hat pulled low over its bearded face. Gloved hands picked up the gun belt, stroking lovingly over the buckle, over every notch in the leather, over the grip of the revolver, and it spoke in a deep, smooth voice.

_“It’s high noon.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your lovely comments and feedback!! :D this chapter's a little longer, and McCree and Hanzo finally actually meet!! 
> 
> remember, comments and feedback mean faster updates because I run off the energy of love and validation.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters

All in all, today was shaping up to be utterly exhausting, Hanzo thought, and he marked down the third instance of potentially damaged merchandise since he’d opened that damn crate. Normally, he prided himself on remaining unflappably calm in the face of anything the world could throw at him. Now, it seemed, that had changed. There was no one else in the store but him, as Genji was now (lackadaisically) scrubbing the windows, and already two of his Rosenthal china cups had plummeted to the floor, cracking one of them, and a mannequin arm full of (faux) jewelry had clattered to the table supporting it. He wasn’t jittery, he _wasn’t,_ and yet there was no other explanation for the chaos. 

Deciding to take a short break to collect himself, he stepped into his office to brew a nice cup of jasmine tea, only to hear the tinkling of the bells above the door as soon as he’d plugged in his electric kettle. With a deep sigh, he unplugged it again, smoothing down the front of his button-up and stepping out to greet his customers. 

“Welcome to Shimadas’ Antiques,” he said, offering them a polite, close-mouthed smile. “Please, take your time. We have many fine items here that may catch your eye.” 

The customers, a blonde tourist hand in hand with her tall, muscular girlfriend in blue and gold, nodded, murmuring their thanks and wandering into the aisles. 

Hanzo resumed his station behind the counter, busying himself with his accounting books. Genji may have had the time to goof off and take ridiculous pictures of himself, but Hanzo understood the importance of appearing engaged and diligent in the presence of customers. After a few minutes, they approached the counter with a thick tome on the history of the area's indigenous peoples' medicinal practices, starting to brown with age. 

“This book is in very good condition,” Hanzo said as he rung the two women up. "I was delighted to find it in one of my shipments.

“It really is!” the blonde woman said excitedly, beaming. “I’ve been looking for it everywhere. I’m so happy to have found it here! There aren’t many copies left in circulation.” 

“Happy birthday,” her girlfriend said warmly, kissing her cheek. 

The interaction renewed an old ache in Hanzo’s chest he’d thought he’d stuffed down long ago. He’d known since he was very small that duty came first and foremost, that personal wants came second, if at all. He’d also known it to be his duty to produce an heir one day, which meant that, to fulfill his destiny as the Shimada heir, he could never have what he so desperately wanted. Things were different, now, but he’d still had no luck in remedying that old ache. “Is it your birthday? I wish you all the best,” he said politely, his customer-service smile firmly affixed to his face. 

As the women were leaving, a well-balanced, firmly-grounded stack of books toppled over, as if some idiot had tried to lean against them. Thankfully, however, the two were already too far out the door to notice such an embarrassment, or Hanzo’s hasty scramble to pick them back up. As he crouched down to pick them up, that bone-deep chill he’d felt in the storeroom descended on him once again. 

Aggressively ignoring the cold, Hanzo replaced the books in their rightful places with slightly more vehemence than necessary. 

“Whoa, who pissed in _your_ coffee?” Genji asked. “Were those two really that bad? I mean, they seemed super nice on the way in and out.” 

Of _course_ Genji picked the exact moment Hanzo lost his temper to walk in. Of fucking course. “They were perfectly fine,” Hanzo said frostily. 

“So who did piss you off?” Genji asked, hopping up onto an intricately-carved wooden stool, pausing his tunes. “I mean, it wasn’t _me,_ because I’ve been outside working and not, y’know, fucking off, ruining the family name, and bringing dishonor upon my ancestors, myself, and my cow, for once.” 

Curtly, Hanzo shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he said.

“Name one time you’ve said that and it’s actually been true.” 

Hanzo scowled at him, all but slamming the last book into place and standing back up. “Watch the store for a moment,” he said. “I’ll be in my office.” 

The door snapped shut behind him, harder than he’d meant for it to, but at least he didn’t have to watch Genji heave a dramatic sigh and roll his eyes. Instead, he could focus on making that tea he so desperately needed. 

_Block out all distractions,_ he reminded himself sternly, breathing in the fragrant steam of his calming jasmine tea. His goal right now was to sell as much merchandise as possible to put Genji through college. These rookie mistakes had to stop. No more knocking things over, no more--

_Crash!_

Bolting out of his chair, Hanzo yanked the door open to find Genji clinging to a sixty-year-old metal hat stand, adrift in the sea of the remains of what had once been a fully stocked bookshelf. 

“I didn’t do it?” Genji tried, and Hanzo heaved a sigh of his own, dragging his palm down his face. It was going to be a long day.

Raising the temperature on the thermostat did nothing to alleviate the cold patches Hanzo kept finding himself standing in. So many times, too, he thought he caught a flash of red in one of the shop’s many mirrors, only to find nothing there at all when he turned. Cleaning up the collapsed bookshelf took the brothers the rest of Genji’s shift, and for once, Genji seemed almost reluctant to clock out when the time came. 

“Call me if you’ve fallen and you can’t get up, okay?” Genji asked, lingering in the doorway. “I’m no LifeAlert, but Zenyatta won’t mind if we have to swing back by here to excavate you from the rubble of the jewelry display or something.”

Hanzo snorted. “Go,” he said flatly. “I’ll be fine.” 

Genji shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said cheerfully. “If you don’t make it back alive by eleven, I’m bringing Reinhardt.” 

“Please don’t.” Hanzo could see it already. Reinhardt’s bulk would destroy the whatever of their stock survived this bout of bad luck. 

“I’ll call later,” Genji promised, and then he was gone, leaving Hanzo alone in a store apparently intent on murdering him. 

Before anything else could collapse on him, Hanzo retreated into the back, pinching the bridge of his nose. Only two more hours to closing, and then he could double-check stock and go home. Hopefully, his store would be finished throwing a fit by the morning. 

He collapsed into an armchair, propping his forehead up against his hands. Today was a fucking disaster. 

“Bad day, partner?” 

Hanzo nearly jumped out of his skin, scrambling to his feet and brandishing the nearest object to him. In this case, it was an oar. “Who’s there?” he demanded. “There are no customers allowed in this area. Leave now.” 

There was no answer. Whoever it was had left, apparently, but Hanzo wasn’t letting his guard down. He made his way through the storeroom, checking every nook and cranny, determined not to let this intruder get away. He found no one. After a moment’s hesitation, he replaced the oar. He’d check the security footage, he decided. That would definitely show who’d been there. 

The little leather-bound journal caught his eye. It lay innocuously on the table, right where he’d left it, but he could have sworn it was closed when he’d set it down. Either way, he itched to take it home with him, read those long-dead outlaw’s records and try to piece his life together. 

After a moment, he went ahead and picked up the book, tucking it into his bag. He’d take a look at it at home. He refused to give whatever nonsense fucking with his head the satisfaction of making him run from it, instead making his way methodically out of the storeroom. 

To his surprise, he found a customer waiting in the shop, leaning against one of the couches. It was a solidly built couch that smelled faintly of mothballs, patterned with muted stripes of dark gold and lighter gold. The man himself was tall, with thick, shaggy brown hair and a comfortable beard along his jaw, complemented by a matching mustache. His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, revealing strong forearms and sturdy, work-rough hands. He wore a vest over his button-up shirt, and well-treated leather chaps over his jeans. He was rugged from head to toe, a creature of the wild that definitely did not belong indoors. 

Hanzo snapped his mouth shut, hoping he wasn't actually drooling. "Welcome," he said. "I'm so sorry I haven't already greeted you. I didn't hear you come in." 

The man's lips quirked into a grin. "Don't you worry about it," he drawled, flashing the storekeeper a wink. "I ain't too fussed about bein' left to my own devices." 

Uncomfortably flushed from the ears down to the neck, Hanzo nodded, swallowing. "Ah, don't hesitate to let me know if you need anything." He was very, very glad Genji wasn't here to laugh at him. 

The man's smile widened, and he made his way into the shelves against the far wall, carefully examining each book before replacing it on the shelf. Hanzo, his heart thudding out a discomfiting, rabbit-quick _thumpthump-thumpthump-thumpthump_ in the general vicinity of his throat, retreated behind the counter, busying himself with his books. He was still itching to check the tapes, but the footage wasn't going anywhere. Besides, remaining accessible in case a customer required assistance was standard procedure, even if surreptitiously changing positions behind the counter to keep the mysterious stranger in his sights was slightly less so.

The man was just so _there,_ solid and sturdy and staunchly, immovably present in a way few people ever were. Hanzo found himself drawn to him, questions on the tip of his tongue that were frankly none of his business and would likely be so off-putting as to cost him not only his presence but his business. Customers would have no interest in answering the proprietor's invasive, personal questions, and even the thought of going up to this man to ask such mundane questions as his favorite color, how he took his coffee, and what he was doing in the bay area was cringeworthy. 

The minutes dragged by, and Hanzo remained trapped in an uncomfortable, unusual teetering, debating back and forth and back and forth as to whether he should speak to the man or not. It was disconcerting. He'd never been less sure of what the correct path to take was, and he didn't like it one bit. He shoved it aside, instead focusing on tallying their meager sales revenue. Despite the town's standard influx of rich tourists, the store wasn't doing terribly well, which boded ill for Hanzo. He'd promised himself he'd put Genji through college, and he refused to fail his brother again, which meant some serious number-crunching was in order. Before he knew it, half an hour had passed, and at some point during that time, the man who'd caused all this goddamn mess in the neat, orderly system of Hanzo's thought processes had slipped out of his sight.

With as much nonchalance as he could muster, Hanzo slipped out from behind the counter, clipboard in hand, strolling around the store looking for him under the pretense of replacing the books in their proper, alphabetical order (which, in his defense, he was also doing.)

Nothing.

The man had vanished, smoke on the wind. Strange. Had he left so soon? Hanzo frowned; he hadn't heard the jingle of the bells, but another quick scan of the store revealed that yes, it was empty.

Curious. Even Genji couldn't entirely avoid the merry twinkling of the little silver bells while passing through the door. Who had that man been, that he'd been able to do so? 

Swallowing what he refused to call disappointment, Hanzo stepped into his office and turned his attention to the security camera feed. Rewinding them showed no intruders in the storeroom, no sign of breaking and entering, nothing but the briefest flicker of static after he'd taken his seat in the armchair. Jotting the incident down on his clipboard for his own records, he returned to the main store security feeds. On impulse, he rewound those tapes, too, checking to see when the man had left.

The man had never been there at all.

Though picture got a little grainy and oddly staticky around the time when Hanzo emerged from the back, the tapes showed no one but Hanzo in the store. No one had come in, no one had left. Hanzo had been speaking to thin air.

How could that be? Hanzo had _seen_ the man, plain as day. There must have been something the matter with the cameras. Picking up the phone, Hanzo called Reinhardt's Swedish friend, who came highly (and painfully loudly) recommended. Fond of embellishing his stories Reinhardt may have been, but his recommendations were sound. Sound in all things but what qualified as a fun night out, Hanzo corrected himself, shuddering. 

The man didn't return, whoever he was. Hanzo closed the shop at six, did one last inventory check, and locked up. Only a few sales today, but better than nothing. Securing his bag over his shoulder, he headed home, walking back up the steep hills by the bay towards the house he and Genji shared with Reinhardt. The sea breeze tugged at his bun, crept into his clothing, just this side of too chilly. It was refreshing, however, to find that the cold spots had remained in the shop. Here, the air was uniformly cool, getting colder still as the sun went down and the marine layer sank back down to hug the bay area. 

Lost in thoughts of the mysterious run of bad luck at the shop, Hanzo didn't quite register the man from before, now fully dressed in his hat and serape against the evening chill, walking along behind him. The setting sun shaded the man in rich mauves and plums that melted to siennas and tangerines, but he cast no shadow. His long-legged, sauntering stride carried him with easy grace along after Hanzo, but in the face of oncoming traffic, he moved more swiftly than the eye could follow, as if someone kept pressing fast-forward, then play, then fast-forward again, then play again. 

No one seemed to notice the stranger with the brim of his hat pulled down low at all, not one single soul. 

As far as the rest of the world was concerned, the cowboy wasn't there at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: these characters are not mine!
> 
> At long last, their first interaction! :D A huge thank you to my beta Aylen for Hanzo's Japanese, as well! Translations will be included in the notes at the end <3
> 
> I'm also considering making a playlist for this fic? let me know in the comments if you're interested! :> thanks so much for all of y'all's comments, too! they make my day better and better with each one I receive <3 <3 <3
> 
>  
> 
> ~~i'm also working on a wanted poster for McCree but don't tell anybody~~

As soon as the door shut behind him, Hanzo let the stresses of the day melt away, setting his bag on the kitchen counter and shuffling to the fridge to fix himself dinner. The fridge's contents were far more bounteous than Hanzo was accustomed to; Genji must have wanted to cook for Zenyatta. Still, the very thought of standing an extra hour or so to cook dinner was appalling, so Hanzo consigned himself to a bowl of leftover rice and microwave-steamed vegetables. What his grandmother didn't know couldn't earn him her silent judgemental face, carrying with it the weight of all the traditions he'd abandoned. He retrieved the bowl of rice and shut the refrigerator once more, pulling a bag of frozen vegetables out of the freezer. If Reinhardt or Genji wanted to cook when they got home, they were welcome to do so. The microwave took only a few minutes to steam the vegetables and warm the rice. Juggling his bowl, a glass of water, and his chopsticks, he turned, adding his his bag to the mix and shuffling to the couch, and the cowboy flickered into existence in the doorway, removing his hat. He was indoors, after all. Nonetheless, he kept it in his hand, trailing after Hanzo with neither a word nor a sound. 

With a soft groan of relief, Hanzo settled onto the couch. It felt good to get off his feet and prop them up on the coffee table. He tipped his head back, eyes shut, and just _breathed._

He was home. 

When he'd settled himself, he dragged his head back upright, rubbing his arms--the refrigerator must have been running colder than usual--and mechanically ate his rice, washing it down with gulps of cool water. Sustenance taken care of, he pulled the old journal out of his satchel, running his fingers along the sloppy, swooping letters scrawled across the yellow-brown first page, marred with coffee rings and smudges of ground-in tobacco ash. The pages were brittle with age under his fingers, the binding crudely done. It was a miracle it had survived as long as it had.

_These are the Personnal Reckords of Jesse McCree, beginning in the Year 1877_

Jesse McCree, unfortunately, shared the same hideous spelling of most of his contemporaries, Hanzo noted, and turned the page.  


> _Met with Jesse Evans & co. today. Finally got someone who can shoot for shit. Young, but damn good. Almost as good as me. Fellas call him the Kid, on account of having 3 other Billies around. I called him DumbAss myself until he shot the cigar outta my mouth. SmartAss.  
>  _
> 
> profit: 
>
>> $17.83 
> 
> expenses:
>
>> Cigars - $1.06  
>  Whisky -$2  
>  Good, Servisible Boots (me) - $1.27  
>  Dandy Shit-Kickers (Roscoe) - $3.09
>> 
>> Totall: $7.42

"I gave Evans hell for makin' me do his accountin'. Just 'cause I _can_ reckon numbers don't mean I wanna."

Hanzo jolted upright, spilling the glass of water at his elbow and only just rescuing the precious journal in his lap in time to avoid the flood. His pants were not so lucky. 

In front of Hanzo's shitty, dumpster-dived coffee table stood the stupidly attractive man from the shop, the hat from the crate in his hand and the poncho-like cloth wrapped around his shoulders. At his hip gleamed the revolver, smug and secure, and Hanzo had a sneaking suspicion that, if he leaned over to peer over the edge of the coffee table, he'd see those dusty, bespurred boots on the man's feet.

The question that won the tumultuous brawl to be first out of Hanzo's mouth was, "Who the hell are you?" followed in short order by, "What are you doing in my house? Where did you get those things?" The knife stuffed down the sofa next to the remote and two empty chip bags ( _Why are you like this, Genji? I didn't raise you to be like this._ ) found itself in Hanzo's right hand, ready to be launched into the intruder's eye socket in, well, the blink of an eye. 

"Whoa, now," the man said, raising his leather-gloved hands in placation. "One at a time. My name's Jesse McCree."

" _Fuzakeruna!_ " Hanzo snapped. "Tell me the truth." 

"McCree" scowled. "My name _is_ Jesse McCree," he insisted. "That's my journal. And you can put the knife down, _compadre._ Ain't gonna do you too much good." 

"Are you? You look wonderful for a two-hundred-year-old man. Stop dodging the question, _McCree._ " 

"Aw, ain't you a sweetheart," the cowboy wannabe purred with a wink. Then he sighed and sat down in the armchair Reinhardt usually occupied, resting his hat on his knee. There was something unsettling about watching him interact with that chair, something like a glitch around his edges, and it wasn't the only thing off about him; but Hanzo couldn't place what else it was. "I'm here because you are," he said unhelpfully, running a hand through his unkempt hair. "Gets a little lonely, hangin' around empty places all day an' all night."

"And your complete lack of a social circle makes me obligated to suffer your presence in my home because...?" 

McCree snorted, shaking his head. "Lord Almighty, you got a sharp tongue on you," he chuckled. "It ain't so much that I ain't got nobody else, though that's certainly the truth, it's that you're the only one I can talk to at all." 

Hanzo stared at him. How brazen this man was, to stalk him, break into his home, and proceed to throw a sorry excuse for an enigmatic sob story at him. "Enlighten me, then. Why is it I am the only person out of seven billion you can talk to?" 

The cowboy's expression clouded. "What's a bill-yun?" 

Was this man serious? Still, humoring him seemed to be the only way to get any answers out of him. "A billion is one thousand millions," he explained, with all the patience of someone explaining basic facts to an idiot.

The furrow of McCree's brows deepened. "How many's a mill-yun?" 

Once again, Hanzo found himself staring at the intruder in disbelief, but he dutifully gritted out, "One million is a thousand thousands."

McCree's face twisted up as he tried to piece together what he'd been told. "Seven thousand thousand-thousands," he muttered to himself, trying to count it out on his fingers. "Boy. Y'all got a lot more folks around than I recall." 

Unimpressed by the man's pretense of dumbstruck wonder, Hanzo pressed on. "Why me, out of all those others?"

Mcree had the gall to look at Hanzo as if _he_ was the one asking stupid questions. "Ain't nobody else had their hands on all my stuff," he said in a tone that indicated this should have been obvious. 

"Your--" Hanzo cut himself off and stood up, scowling. "This is ridiculous. I refuse to believe that you're some kind of _ghost._ Go back where you came from, _Jesse McCree,_ before I call the police. If I see you anywhere near me, I will kill you myself."

The prospect of the police only made him snort. "I mean, sure, if you're aimin' to land yourself in somebody's attic, run and get the sheriff," he said, rubbing one (thick, muscular-- _no._ ) thigh. "What you believe don't change the facts of it. Shit, I didn't believe it myself, for the first couple weeks. Least, I think it was a couple weeks. Ain't got too good a grip on time no more."

"Prove it." 

"What?" 

"If you're a ghost, prove it." Hanzo had the sinking suspicion Jesse was telling the truth. The cold spots, the corrupted camera footage, the series of accidents at the store, and hearing the outlaw's disembodied voice all corroborated his story. What Hanzo had experienced while holding his gun, too, had felt unsettlingly real.

McCree sighed and ran his hand through his hair again. "Where do y'all keep old wanted posters? Lawmen got 'em? Library?" 

A smug kind of glee skittered across Hanzo's nerves. This cowboy was about to get his mind blown. Reaching into his bag, he pulled out his laptop, setting it down on his thighs and booting it up.

McCree jumped out of his skin at the sound it made and scrambled to take cover behind the armchair he'd been sitting in, gun in his hand. The barrel of it gleamed where it poked up over the arm of the chair, pointed at the computer without so much as a hint of a tremor. "The hell was that?" he demanded. 

Hanzo ignored him, instead logging on and pulling up a search engine. "Jesse McCree," he muttered to himself, peck-typing the name into the search bar, followed by 'wanted poster.' Wanted posters generally included some manner of drawing of the person in question, at least. 

"The hell kinda witchcraft are you up to?" McCree hissed.

Once again, Hanzo didn't answer. Jesse wasn't going to shoot him, not unless he wanted to be consigned to loneliness for the rest of his afterlife. He watched with baited breath as the gray loading circle chased its tail, over and over and over again.

And then it loaded.

  
**WANTED**  
_JESSE McCREE_  
for **ROBBERY, CATTLE RUSTLING,** &  
**MURDER**

**$250,000  
REWARD **

There he was. An accurate rendition of the fool currently hiding behind Reinhardt's armchair from the unholy wrath of a laptop, a cigar clamped in his teeth and fire in his eyes.

"250,000?" That was a staggering amount of money for the time period. "Your bounty was _$250,000?_ " 

"Damn right it was." McCree sounded proud of himself, and he poked his head warily up from behind the armchair, gun still leveled at the laptop. "Your magic brick tell you that?" 

Hanzo rolled his eyes, turning the laptop around so McCree could see the screen. "It's a machine. I used it to search for your wanted poster." 

McCree crossed himself, something akin to terror in his honey-brown eyes. "What kinda machine is that? Where's it keep all those posters? Why're they so damn tiny?" Without lowering his gun, he crept out from behind his cover, eyes flickering from the keyboard to the screen. "...this some new-fangled kinda typewriter?"

Hanzo did _not_ want to explain all of that, but if it meant McCree would put his stupid fucking revolver down... "It's called a computer. It's...a descendant of the typewriter, yes." It was best to keep this simple. He didn't want to confuse McCree, as that would lead to more questions he didn't want to answer. "It has access to almost any information one could want. _You_ are to keep your ghost paws off." 

McCree pouted. "World's come a long ways without me," he said wistfully, holstering his gun, though his eyes never left the machine in Hanzo's lap. "Can you blame me for wantin' to know how far?" 

Hanzo exited the browser and closed his laptop with a snort. "You are not my responsibility, McCree. You're a ghost. Simply phase through the walls of the library and access those computers, if you want to know so badly."

A scowl replaced the pout. "Can't be where my stuff ain't," he repeated, plaintive. "'Sides, I wouldn't have the first clue how to go about usin' one of them things, anyway." He flopped back into the armchair, but the cushions barely puffed at all in response. 

He cast no shadow, Hanzo realized belatedly. The light interacted with him, but it shone through him regardless. Filing away the observation, Hanzo returned his attention to the task at hand. "You are bound to your possessions. Why? What keeps you here?" 

McCree gave a soft snort. "That's just the thing, partner," he said ruefully. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" Fucking wonderful. 

"If I knew, you think I'd've stuck around for a damn century and a half?" McCree retorted, rubbing his thigh again. 

Hanzo heaved a gusty sigh, burying his face in his hands. He couldn't believe he was sitting on the couch in soaking-wet pants, considering making a deal with the ghost of an outlaw, but he didn't have the heart to find the appropriate banishing ritual. "You made a mess of my shop today. You will stop it."

McCree perked up like a dog promised a bone. "You mean I can stay?" 

Hanzo glowered at him. "Only if you refrain from destroying my shop or terrorizing myself, my brother, or my customers. Am I clear?" 

McCree downright _beamed_ at him. "Sure thing, darlin'. No terrorizin', no destroyin'." 

Well, that was the best Hanzo was likely to get, he thought, ears tinged pink at the ridiculous endearment. The hat--the whole outfit, for that matter--the damn ghost in his living room, McCree's beard, the fact that Hanzo was negotiating with him, all of it was ridiculous. Absolutely fucking ridiculous.

This had _better_ not blow up in his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [inflation calculator,](http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi) if you want to see how much McCree earned/spent;  
> [the Jesse Evans gang,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Evans_Gang) with whom Billy the kid [ran for a few years.](http://www.aboutbillythekid.com/summary_billy.htm)
> 
> Translations:  
>  _Fuzakeruna!_ : don't bullshit me/fuck off


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been two weeks, oops. Retail is exhausting, lmao. Anyway, thanks so much for sticking around!! Pretty please leave me a comment; they're my life force and give you faster updates. It also counts my own replies to comments as comments of their own, so half of those comments are from me, meaning we are not sitting pretty at 69 comments, unfortunately xD

Hanzo woke to the stench of something burning. 

"Mornin', sunshine! Rise and-- _shit!_ " McCree swore as he dropped to avoid the knife flung at his head. His hat escaped unscathed, but the tray of breakfast held in his hands was somewhat less fortunate. "Aw, now look what you made me do." Coffee had sloshed out of the cup and across the tray, tainting the orange juice and absolutely soaking the...

"What _are_ those?" Hanzo asked, eyeing what appeared to be eggs on (in?) burned toast with no small amount of suspicion. 

"Cowboy eggs, of course!" McCree sounded almost offended. "You got your nice, buttery bread with a hole cut in the middle where you put the egg in to fry the both of them up." 

Hanzo, his heart still pounding from his sudden awakening, wasn't really listening. "You're real," he said, stupidly, but in his defense, he had yet to be caffeinated this morning. 

"Shit, darlin', of course I'm real," McCree chuckled. "We covered this last night, remember?" 

"Creations of an exhaustion-addled mind rarely remain in once one is awake." He wrinkled his nose at the mess McCree had clearly intended to be food. "Certainly, they do not attempt to bring one breakfast in bed." 

"Creation of a--aww, are you callin' me a dream, sugar?" 

Hanzo scowled, raking his hair away from his face and up into a loose, sloppy ponytail. He'd fix it properly after his shower. "I said nothing of the sort."

McCree smiled. "Yes, you did." 

Hanzo's scowl deepened. "Go away, cowboy. I have to prepare for the day, which I cannot do with you here." 

McCree sighed, gathering up the coffee-drenched remains of breakfast. He looked incredibly dejected, a kicked puppy in vintage 1870s cowboy haute couture; irritatingly enough, he managed to make Hanzo feel guilty about treating him so harshly. 

"McCree." 

The cowboy lifted his head, clearly expecting further rebuke.

"Thank you," Hanzo said begrudgingly. McCree had made an attempt, after all, and the Shimada clan hadn't raised a gutter brat. "For breakfast." 

A slow smile lit up McCree's craggy face. Hanzo had never been to the Grand Canyon, but that smile spawned an image of the sun rising over its soaring, sharp-edged walls. "You go on and freshen up," the cowboy said, a warm burr in his drawl. "I'll give breakfast another shot." He straightened up and turned to depart from Hanzo's bedroom.

His stupid, sappy expression had brought an answering warmth to Hanzo's chest, and that just wouldn't do. Abruptly, he flung off the covers and stood up. He had work to do; he couldn't sit around mooning after ghosts. 

\--

Hanzo had always taken quick showers, but this one was fast, even for him. He was in and out in record time. He trimmed his beard in the humid confines of the sun-splotched bathroom, scraped his hair back and away from his face into a severely neat ponytail, and swept out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam. 

Normally, the long-practiced repetition of the act of dressing himself was soothing, but today, he was impatient. McCree could be burning his kitchen down while Hanzo was fiddling with shirt buttons. He paid the price for his haste when he buttoned his shirt unevenly not once but twice; the second time made him swear so loudly he earned a cheerful, "Whoa, now, you kiss your mama with that mouth?" from the kitchen. 

Hanzo didn't deign to respond to that immediately, instead removing the knife from the wall, replacing it under his pillow, and making his bed. Then and only then did he venture out into the kitchen, whereupon the witty retort he'd been perfecting died in his throat. 

The kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off. Pancake batter splattered the far wall and the undersides of the corresponding upper cabinets. Hanzo's beautiful, shining metal mixing bowls were now dented, scratched, and, to pile insult on top of injury, encrusted in tacky, half-dried pancake batter. His poor, previously-pristine frying pan had been used to half burn an unholy combination of bacon, beans, and McCree's "cowboy eggs," while another frying pan held the remains of a half-charred pancake. Suspended over Hanzo's favorite saucepan was what appeared to be one of Reinhardt's socks, bulging with a multitude of tiny lumps. 

Coffee beans, Hanzo realized, watching in horror as the sock dripped black-brown liquid into the pan below. McCree had steeped coffee in one of Reinhardt's socks. 

"What," Hanzo asked, a glacial patience in his tone that spoke of catastrophe bubbling close to the surface, "are you doing?" 

McCree, who was dribbling what looked like the remaining half of the bottle of imported Canadian maple syrup Genji had received in a secret Santa last Christmas over the stack of pancakes on the plate, looked up, bemused. "Why, makin' breakfast, of course." He jerked his thumb towards the hall. "Tried to ask the fella in the fancy green earmuffs who was in charge of breakfast around here, but then I remembered he can't see or hear me unless I really work myself up into a lather, so I figured, shit, I can make breakfast my own damn self." He sounded almost proud of himself. "Found some eggs, some flour, a little sugar, some milk and even some butter; and y'all ain't got no breadbox, but I found this bread in a bag, which is fresh enough to eat, anyhow. I even found real live maple syrup!" 

"Can you even eat breakfast?" 

McCree visibly deflated. "No," he said, and damn it, there was that distressingly sad look again. "But where I come from, a fella earns his keep." 

In Hanzo's opinion, the mess McCree had made wasn't worth the breakfast, however delicious it might be. He might have to bribe Genji into--

"Whoa, bro, you didn't tell me you had _company_ last night." 

Speak of the goddamn devil. Genji stood in the doorway in socked feet, wearing what appeared to be a shirt he'd stolen from Hanzo's laundry and a pair of frog-print pajama pants, his stupidly expensive headphones looped around his neck.

"I didn't--"

"Bullshit. You totally did! You'd have a heart attack and die if you ever made this much of a mess," Genji interrupted, swiping a strip of bacon off the plate. "Any chance he got that stick out of your ass while he was up there?" 

"That's no way to talk to your elder brother, you--aw, shucks, he can't hear me. Little shit." 

"--and you really shouldn't be having sex out here in the kitchen, because first of all, ew, and second of all, unsanitary! You're always riding my ass about unsanitary this and unhygienic that, and you're fucking in the kitchen while pancakes burn? Gross." 

" _I_ ride your ass? I thought that was Zenyatta's job, but go ahead. Keep talking." Hanzo leaned against the wall, the leather-bound handle of one of the many bamboo training _shinai_ strewn about the apartment brushing his elbow. 

Genji backed up a step, eyes wide. "Whoa, whoa, hey, I see the stick is still the--nope, shutting up," he finished hastily.

"As I am a merciful and forgiving brother, I have a proposition for you," Hanzo said, feeling oddly vindicated by the look of awe on McCree's face. "I'll pay you for an entire day's worth of work at the shop for which you do not actually have to work. In exchange, you will scrub this kitchen spotless. Whatever time you have remaining is yours to spend as you will." 

Genji frowned. "Am I gonna have to scrub weirdo spooge off the counters?" 

McCree's expression melted into one of revulsion. "Well, I never! What kinda breakfasts are y'all eatin' around here?" he demanded, eyeing the chaos around them suspiciously. 

"You may rest assured that your disturbing fantasies are baseless," Hanzo said curtly.

"Good," Genji responded, oblivious to McCree's plight. "I'll take it. But you owe me new groceries, since Mr. Mystery Spooge wrecked mine."

As Hanzo leaned back for the _shinai,_ McCree demanded, "Mister who the what?"

Genji's headphones popped, spitting sparks that bit into his skin.

"Ow!"

Hanzo relaxed. If Genji was complaining about it, he wasn't actually hurt. "Fine. Leave the list on the refrigerator." Deciding to leave on that note, he turned to exit the kitchen, but was thwarted by the sight of McCree picking up his (admittedly well put-together) breakfast tray sitting on the table in the dining nook.

"Shit, don't forget your breakfast!"

"Thank you, I'll just take this." Carefully, Hanzo extricated the tray from McCree's grip--he was surprisingly warm, for a ghost--and made a beeline for his room, where Genji could not see any floating breakfast foods or be disturbed by the sight of Hanzo arguing with thin air, and where he might-- _might_ \--consider having a bite or two before work. 

"Thank you?" 

Hanzo ignored Genji's befuddlement.

\--

He ate the whole tray. 

\--

The walk to the shop was somewhat less awful than usual. McCree's company was enjoyable, though Hanzo would never admit to it. He had a childlike kind of wonder as he peered around at the world, asking any questions he thought he could get away with, and it made Hanzo wonder for just how many of the past hundred years Jesse had been conscious. Had he been aware of the passage of time? Was he able to manifest himself without outside influence? 

"McCree," he started to ask during a lull in the cowboy's stream of inquiries, but when his dark eyes turned to him, Hanzo changed his mind. There was no need to spoil McCree's good mood with thoughts of the past. "Have you ever seen the ocean?"

McCree lit up like a puppy promised a bone, and Hanzo maybe lit up a little bit, too, inside. Maybe. "Can't say that I have." 

A ghost of an upward twitch flickered across Hanzo's mouth. "Perhaps a trip to the wharf is in order." 

McCree brushed two fingers down the brim of his hat, almost as if tipping it. "It'd be a pleasure." 

It said a lot about how long it had been since he'd had some form of companionship that Hanzo was considering taking McCree on the Seventeen-Mile Drive. No doubt he'd get a kick out of it. Still, Hanzo wasn't quite sure he'd consider McCree a friend yet; he was, after all, technically a literally captive audience. Nonetheless, the walk through the frigid, swirling breath of the rolling fog felt different, today, McCree and his bold colors warming the little pocket of visibility they occupied. For a moment, Hanzo could almost believe that this could be a permanent fixture in his life, that he, like Genji, could perhaps have company to keep, or a recipient for ridiculous selfies sent via the mystical Instant Snap. 

Hanzo knew his stoicism was seen as cold and haughty, and his taciturn nature and intolerance for most forms stupidity--even well-meaning ones--rendered him at the bottom of most people's lists of friends whose company they enjoyed, if he was even on any of those lists to begin to with, as it had been his whole life. He was in no way used to someone slotting so comfortably into his life as McCree was doing with such ease, as if Hanzo was not, in fact, a frigid, sardonic bastard, but actually desirable company. Beggars couldn't be choosers, Hanzo knew, and McCree was more than likely simply grateful that Hanzo had yet to salt and burn his belongings.

It was...nice. 

Unfortunately, Hanzo knew, the other shoe was bound to drop one day soon, and he preferred not to be stomped to pieces under that other shoe, so he kept his distance as best he could manage. 

The shop loomed out of the mist, a reassuringly familiar figure. Hanzo unlocked the door, making sure to say, "You are welcome in this establishment," to McCree over his shoulder. The ghost hadn't had any issue exiting the shop the night previous, but Hanzo preferred to ensure the wards Amari had helped him put up after the shop had burned down didn't force McCree away. 

He studiously ignored the puzzled, guarded look McCree leveled at him; instead he held the door open for him and gestured impatiently for him to hurry up. 

"I assume you remember the rules," Hanzo continued, running through his usual opening checks. Nothing missing, all other windows and doors still locked, and nothing out of place. One day, Genji would learn the importance of knowing exactly where everything went. 

"No destroyin' your shop, and no terrorizin'," McCree said, ticking them off on his fingers. He sounded excited, potentially at the prospect of spending the day with someone else for the first time in fuck only knew how long. "Spoil all my fun, why don't you?" 

Hanzo swiveled around to fix him with a withering glare. 

"I ain't gonna do it! I'm good for my word. Quit lookin' at me like you caught me rustlin' your cattle." 

Hanzo sighed, but McCree had given him no reason not to trust him. "Fine. The store opens in one hour, and I have preparations to make." He slipped his bag into its customary place in the cabinet under the counter, opening the register to double-check the count. 

"You're short a hand today," McCree observed, straightening a stack of books. "What can I do to help?"

"I can't ask you to help, McCree," Hanzo said, looking up from his count. "I can't pay legally dead persons." 

McCree snorted. "I done worse for no pay before," he said loftily.

Hanzo felt the back of his neck heat up. To keep from putting his foot in it, he kept his mouth shut, instead ducking his head and returning to his count, doing his best not to think about what 'worse' might entail. 

McCree must have been satisfied with that non-answer, because he reached across the counter to retrieve the broom and set about sweeping the store. The steady _shht, shht, shht_ of the broom created a soothing susurrus background to Hanzo's standard preparations. All in all, the morning was shaping up to be a highly satisfactory one, in Hanzo's opinion, and then he heard the knock at the back door. 

Frowning, he went to answer it, leaving McCree to his sweeping.

"Got a delivery for you, Mr. Shimada." His deliveryman was standing there, a large, flat wooden container on a dolly by his side. He held out the clipboard for Hanzo to sign. 

Odd, Hanzo thought. Usually, shipments arrived on Mondays and Fridays. Still, it was clearly and neatly addressed to him. "Has the schedule changed?" 

"Nah," the man said, pushing his cap back. "This is a special delivery. Overnighted from Vegas." 

Ah. Strange, but not unheard of. Genji's exploits occasionally landed them some social media attention, which even more rarely resulted in anonymous donations. Scanning the delivery details, he gave a curt nod and signed for it, stepping aside to allow the deliveryman to wheel it in. 

After the deliveryman left, Hanzo stood inspecting it for a moment, lost in thought. 

"Genji said you don't eat break--fuck!" McCree hit the floor to avoid the knife Hanzo whipped through the air at him, his broom clattering down seconds later. "You gotta quit doin' that!" 

"It's a survival mechanism," Hanzo said brusquely, stepping over McCree to retrieve the knife, then, after a moment's hesitation, extended a hand to help him up. "Startling me isn't wise. What did Genji say?" 

"That you don't eat breakfast," McCree repeated, eyeing Hanzo's extended hand as if checking for further weaponry before he took it, hauling himself up. For all he looked solid, he didn't weigh enough to register as something Hanzo was lifting. It was a sobering reminder of their situation. McCree wasn't here because he wanted to be. He was here because he didn't have a choice.

"Genji talks too much," Hanzo said flatly. When McCree showed no signs of releasing his hand, Hanzo was forced to be the one to break away first, retrieving a crowbar to open the box.

"Don't you know you oughta eat breakfast in the mornin'?" he asked, watching Hanzo pry open the crate. 

Hanzo grunted, then sneezed at the cloud of dust leaping free. 

"I mean it, Shimada. That's a real good way to get yourself killed."

"Selling antiques isn't going to kill me," Hanzo said. 

McCree scowled. "Everybody knows you need to eat breakfast," he retorted. "Pony thought he didn't need to eat no breakfast, neither, and do you know what happened to him? He just fainted clean away, fell off his horse, and got trampled by cattle!"

Out of the box, Hanzo lifted a lovingly rendered painting of what appeared to be swirling darkness, gleaming with scattered light sources. It wasn't space, but it was certainly captivating. Hanzo couldn't look away. 

"Put it back." McCree's voice was tense.

Hanzo finally tore his eyes away to look over at his companion, whose gun hand hovered unsettlingly close to his revolver. "You won't like what happens if you destroy my merchandise," he warned him, shifting to put himself between McCree and the mysterious painting. 

"I don't like it," he said, jaw tight, eyes hard. "It's bad news, Shimada." 

"The resonance in this painting is entirely different from the resonance I felt from your gun," Hanzo said. "If it was anything malevolent, it could never have gotten into this shop." 

McCree's scowl deepened, and he didn't move. 

"Stand down, McCree." 

"It's movin'." 

"It's a good painting, meant to give the illusion of movement," Hanzo countered. He didn't like the unhappy set to McCree's jaw, but the image of McCree hiding behind furniture from a laptop was too fresh in his mind for Hanzo to lend much credence to this objection. Leaning the painting against a claw-footed walnut dining table, he retrieved his inventory book, carefully making note of the new item. It didn't appear to have a signature on it, and the frame might need a little restoration. The faux gold veneer was starting to chip at the edges. 

"I'm tellin' you, Shimada, somethin's off about that thing," McCree insisted, following Hanzo as he picked up the painting and carried it out into the store proper. He'd hang it on the wall behind the counter, Hanzo decided, pulling the hammer and nails off of the shelf under the register. 

"While your concern is appreciated, I _do_ need to sell whatever I can," he said finally as he measured out the placement of the nails. "There is nothing wrong with this painting, beyond your misgivings, for which you have no grounds but the fact that it makes you uncomfortable."

"You don't even know who this thing came from!"

"I've had anonymous donations before," Hanzo said evenly, pounding the nails home in a few swift hammer blows apiece.

"Wait, you didn't--you didn't find my stuff?" 

"We're in California, McCree," Hanzo said, climbing back down the stepstool and returning his tools to their proper places. "I received your things in a crate I received as part of a purchase I made from an antiques dealer."

"And that landed you with me," McCree pointed out. "I wrecked half your shop just tryin' to figure out how in the hell legs worked again." 

Before Hanzo could compose a response, the door above the bell jingled, announcing the entrance of the first customer of the day. 

"Mark my words, that thing's trouble," McCree hissed, knowing full well Hanzo couldn't respond to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A _shinai_ is a bamboo sword used in kendo (they're all training swords, technically). It looks like this:
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'ALL OMG I'M SO SORRY I HAVEN'T HAD INTERNET PRETTY MUCH SINCE I LAST POSTED OK BUT I READ ALL YOUR COMMENTS FROM MY PHONE AND I LOVE YOU AND I'LL TRY TO GET BACK TO EVERYONE SOON!! THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT AND PLS ENJOY THESE SHENANIGANS (TM)

"That's a doozy of a haircut. What happened? Somebody shoot his barber halfway through?"

Hanzo eyed the gentleman in question, who wore a long, bushy beard but kept his head shaved, except for the crown, out of which sprouted a clump of dark brown hair that flopped to one side. How did one go about explaining hipsters to a cowboy? It didn't matter, though, because he couldn't be seen talking to thin air. "Welcome to Shimadas' Antiques."

The man looked up, pushing his oversized spectacles up his nose, and flashed him a smile. "Hey, man. You have any old jazz records?" he asked. "And I mean really old. Early 1920s, old. Anything like that?" 

"What records I have will be over here," Hanzo said, escorting the customer to the table of boxes towards the back of the shop. Leaving the hipster to his own devices, Hanzo returned to the counter.

"I mean it. Does he know he looks like a dog shit on his head?" McCree was peering over Hanzo's shoulder, just a hair shy of touching him.

Only Hanzo's long years of self-discipline kept him from cracking a smile. Or from leaning backwards into the warmth of McCree's body, for that matter. That would be entirely inappropriate. "Hard to tell. Some of them do stupid things intentionally."

"Hey, is this a 1915 French His Master's Voice Monarch Gramophone-Phonograph you're selling for $3,500?" Shit-For-Hair asked, looking excitedly up from his phone.

"Three thousand and five hundred dollars?" McCree squawked, taking a step back and clutching his heart. "What in the Sam Hill? I ain't never seen that much money in my damn life, and I rob banks for a living! What kind of business are you running, Shimada?"

"Yes, it is," he called back to the hipster drooling over the gramophone. Then, to McCree, he said, "I suppose haunting a ranch in the desert doesn't provide much opportunity to learn about inflation."

"Inflation?"

"I'll take it! Do you take Apple Pay?"

"You can pay with apples? Are they some kind of rare delicacy, these days?" McCree was bewildered to the point that he sounded faint, as if he might collapse from shock at any moment. As amusing as Hanzo found McCree's confusion, he wasn't sure if he should be concerned. Was fainting common where McCree came from?

"Unfortunately, no," Hanzo said, ignoring McCree's questions for now. He had no intention of bothering with that hipster nonsense, either, but this customer didn't need to know that.

"You really went all-out on this vintage thing, huh?" the man asked, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. "Okay, I've got my credit card on me."

"Perfect." Cautiously noting and filing away the flicker of something dark and unrecognizable in his peripherals as he returned to the record displays, Hanzo pulled the ring of keys off his belt and unlocked the display case, very carefully lifting the unwieldy antique from its resting place and carrying it up to the register, customer and McCree in tow. Briskly, he typed in the purchase amount and mentally calculated sales tax. "Your total is $3,793.13," he said, flipping through his inventory to mark the gramophone as sold. "Go ahead."

Out of the corner of his eye, Hanzo spotted McCree reaching for the register, and subtly took a step back, one arm behind his back and pressed firmly against McCree's stomach. After what he'd done to Genji's headphones, Hanzo did not trust him around electronics of any kind.

"Don't touch the register," he hissed while Shit-For-Hair was distracted by InstaSnapping his prize to his friends. He studiously did not think about the muscles he could feel against his forearm. Ghosts had no business being warm, let alone being muscular. That was reserved for the living, surely. Still, it was nice, and Hanzo wouldn't mind too much if McCree decided he wanted to stay right where he was.

"Oh, right. Don't wanna fry the doohickey." McCree scooted back, and Hanzo definitely did _not_ mourn the loss of contact. Thankfully, the hipster seemed too excited to notice Hanzo's odd behavior, and within moments, he had his precious burden in his arms and was taking it and his offensive haircut towards the door.

Watching him go, however, Hanzo noticed a box sitting squarely in the hipster's path. How could that be? He was _sure_ he'd left in the row adjacent to the center aisle. Shaking himself out of it, however, he vaulted the counter, arriving at the man's side just in time to catch him as he tripped over the box, mindful to steady the gramophone, too.

"Thanks, man," the hipster said, heaving a sigh of relief. "Almost dropped this." He stepped carefully around the box before resuming his path towards the exit. "Have a good one!"

Hanzo exhaled slowly when Shit-For-Hair made it safely out, turning a suspicious eye to the box of heavy books blocking the aisle. He was absolutely positive he hadn't left it there. The only possible explanation was that McCree had moved it somehow, but how could he have? He'd been busy gawking at technology and inflation prices. There was only one way to find out, he supposed.

"McCree, what did you do to this box?"

" _Me?_ " McCree had the gall to sound almost offended. " _I_ didn't do a damn thing!"

Without arguing, Hanzo turned and strode back to the storeroom. It was time to hang that new painting. McCree followed him, still protesting.

"C'mon, Shimada, you don't honestly think I moved that thing, do you?"

"What I know," Hanzo said, pushing the door open, "is that _I_ didn't move it, and that fool certainly didn't. That leaves us with one option." He stopped just inside the door, frowning. He couldn't recall having put the painting on the table, but there it sat in all its inky-black glory. He was jolted out of his reverie, however, when McCree ran into him.

"What's the hold u--" McCree cut himself off, dark eyes narrowing, his hand coming up to rest warily on his gun. "Wards or no wards, that thing's _moved._ " 

_Had_ it moved? He'd thought he'd left the painting leaning against the shelves, too, but he couldn't be sure. It was so frustrating. He was always so careful to keep everything in its place, but today, he'd been so _distracted_ by McCree and his damn pretty face and stupidly warm self. Gritting his teeth, he stepped forward and picked up the painting, turning on his heel and brushing past McCree on the way back out to the floor.

"I'm telling you, Shimada, you don't want bad juju like that in here," McCree said darkly. "Thing's bad news, believe you me."

"It's just a--" Hanzo stopped himself as the door opened, and in shuffled Perla, one of his regulars, her silver-white hair pulled back into a severely neat bun at the base of her skull.

"Good morning, Hanzo," she said, her eyes as bright as the sun glinting off her walker. "Do you have anything new for me today?"

"Good morning, Miss Sanchez," Hanzo said, setting the painting aside to cross to her. "Yes, they just arrived yesterday." He led her down the rows of knick-knacks and figurines to the shelf of cat figurines, each eerier than the last. He ordered them specially for her, although she didn't know it; and he took pride in finding the most bizarre poses and expressions possible.

Perla clapped in glee, settling her glasses on her nose as she scooped a porcelain tabby off the shelf, patting its snarl-wrinkled muzzle. "I like these, Hanzo. Where do you find them?"

"Trade secret," Hanzo said, allowing himself a tiny, secretive smile.

Behind him, a large, wild-eyed porcelain rooster began to scoot off its shelf, its carved beak poised to bury itself in someone's skull.

"Shimada!" McCree hissed, eyes locked on the softly-scraping rooster. "Behind you!"

Hanzo glanced back just in time to see something black and wispy in the corner of his eye, and then the rooster fell. His hand shot out, snatching the sculpture from the air before it could crash onto him, his customer, or the floor.

"Good catch," Perla observed, her chosen tabby clutched to her chest. "I think I'll just take this one for today and be on my way, Hanzo. I have to take Emilio to his follow-up at the vet's."

Hanzo forced a smile, placing the rooster on the shelf behind him. He was going to murder McCree himself. "Glad the surgery went well."

He processed the sale without a hitch, and after he'd bid Perla farewell, he set about hanging up the new painting beside the clocks, across from the stuffed deer heads mounted on the far wall. It looked good there, he thought. Now, to deal with McCree.

"I don't like it," the cowboy himself grumbled, arms crossed like a petulant child.

"That's no reason to assault my customers," Hanzo retorted, turning to glower at him.

McCree took a step back, hands raised in supplication, and that damned rooster crashed to the ground, shattering on impact.

"Stop doing that!" Hanzo snapped, bristling. "You gave me your word!"

"I ain't doing it!" McCree insisted, appalled. "The hell would I be warning you for if I was?"

Hanzo could feel his good mood from earlier beginning to fade. "I'm sure I don't know." His customers were being attacked. McCree had already demonstrated that he was capable of pulling it off if he wanted to, but there was definitely something off about the painting. Suspiciously, he turned to look at it again, but it was so _intriguing._

"I warn't nowhere near that box _or_ the damn rooster. Look, to prove it ain't me, put my book outside the shop. I'll sit right in the alley, outside of them wards, and then maybe you'll believe I ain't fucking around with nothing."

Hanzo blinked, startled, and dragged his eyes away from the painting and back towards McCree. "All right," he said, at something of a loss for words. He wasn't quite sure what to say, but he supposed testing McCree's theory couldn't hurt. Going back behind the counter, he pulled the journal from his bag, wrapping it in cloth. McCree followed with the downtrodden air of a dog wrongfully accused of digging up the yard. Hanzo placed the wrapped journal carefully into a box and carried it out to the back stoop, tucking it safely under the stairs. "Wait here," he said when McCree's red serape materialized in the corner of his eye.

The shop was still empty when Hanzo came back inside, so he picked up the broom from behind the counter and swept the shards of ex-rooster into a paper bag. It was a shame that McCree had chosen that particular statue to smash, he thought, dropping the bag into the garbage can in his office. It added such a wonderful air of eccentricity to the shop. Putting thoughts of McCree out of his mind, Hanzo tried to find something to do, but not because the silence was growing unbearable. He checked and double-checked his books, making sure both the gramophone and the cat sculpture had been correctly marked. (They had. Of course they had. He'd been the one who'd marked them.)

A third customer entered, and the conversation Hanzo had with him seemed lackluster without McCree's amusingly shocked-bordering-on-offended commentary. The man decided on a set of cufflinks, after enough wiffling and waffling to make Hanzo sorry that McCree was missing out on such a fantastic opportunity to laugh at him. The man just wouldn't stop _talking_ without saying anything at all, and Hanzo cast a mournful glance over his shoulder to the door to the back. Though there was no window through which he might have caught a glimpse of McCree, there was--

There was the knife display coming to life was what there was. Hastily, Hanzo slammed the lid shut, leaning on it in what he hoped was a casual manner. "Twenty-one fifty-seven," he said, relieved when his voice sounded no different than before.

Another scrap of something shadowy ghosted across the very edge of his perception, and that was when Hanzo noticed the deer.

Every stuffed deer head mounted on the wall had turned to stare at him, unblinking glassy eyes fixed on the counter. On _him._

Hanzo stared right back, more in surprise than anything else. _At least it really wasn't McCree,_ a ~~not-so~~ small part of him whispered, and he rubbed his left arm, eyes narrowed. There was no way it could have been--a mere ghost couldn't have gotten past his grandmother's warding.

"Uh, Mr. Shimada?"

The customer's annoyingly reedy voice interrupted Hanzo's train of thought.

"May I have my receipt?"

Handing the man his receipt, Hanzo bid him a curt farewell. The knife display didn't calm down until the door shut behind the idiot.

Stepping out from around the counter, he approached the painting.

The billowing cloud of dark, formless _something_ it depicted had definitely moved.

Lifting it from the wall, he shuffled slowly out into the alley, dropping slowly down onto the stoop beside McCree.

"What are you doing?" the cowboy asked suspiciously, but Hanzo couldn't seem to look away from the painting.

"Testing something."

"Testing what?" When Hanzo didn't respond, McCree took the painting from his hands.

Hanzo blinked, shaking his head to clear it. "The painting."

Leaving the painting with McCree, Hanzo hurried back into the shop.

Nothing.

No flickering darkness, no slightly unsettling atmosphere.

Hanzo ran back outside, only to catch McCree trying to cram the painting into a trash can just barely too small to fit, chips of gilt flying off with each shove.

"What are you doing?"

"Putting this thing where it belongs," McCree said defensively.

"No, no. We have to dispose of it properly." Pulling the box with McCree's journal in it from under the stairs, he unwrapped the journal and covered the painting with the cloth instead. Then, he took out his phone, sighing at it. "I have to make a very expensive phone call."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hooooooooo my god I'm so sorry y'all i am DYING under CAPITALISM but here have a longish chapter to make up for it??? plz I'm sorry I read every comment and you nourished my suffering soul in its feeble flesh prison and THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!
> 
>  **EDIT:** A huge thank you to thatchickwithsocks for her help with the historical accuracy in this chapter!

_“...Yes...yes. Eileen Fawkes? Yes...let me write the address down.”_

Jesse leaned against the counter, watching Hanzo pace back and forth as he spoke into the tiny little brick he kept in his pocket, which he claimed was a telephone. Jesse wasn’t sure if he believed that or not, frankly, but Hanzo wasn’t the type to talk to himself for the sake of making fun of him, as far as Jesse could tell. If saddlebag-sized folding typewriters could have libraries inside them, maybe pocket bricks could be telephones. 

Hanzo gestured brusquely, and Jesse scooted out of his way, watching curiously as he opened a drawer full of shiny glass-like tubes and pulled one out. Pressing the button on the end of the tube produced a tiny spike, and--

A pen! It was a pen! Eyeing Hanzo as he scribbled something down onto a scrap of receipt paper without an inkwell in sight, Jesse scooched closer, slow as he’d approach a skittish horse, and swiped a witchcraft pen from the drawer, squinting at it as if that would somehow force it to divulge its secrets. When no revelations were made to him, he retreated warily out of Hanzo’s reach to inspect it, clicking it and tugging at the clip on the side as he tried to deduce its inner workings. It didn’t have any hinges that he could see, nor could he find a way to open it. Repeated clickings didn’t solve the mystery, either, and only made Hanzo swipe Jesse’s prized curio out of his hands and throw it back in the drawer with a poisonous glower directed at the cowboy.

Hanzo drew his thumb over his throat in a universal gesture for _Knock it the fuck off, or else, _which definitely didn’t make Jesse pout. He scowled, manly as could be.__

____

__

_“Yes. Thank you, Grandmother. I will go to her immediately.”_

That sounded like the end of Hanzo’s conversation, even if Jesse didn’t understand the language. He’d met a few Japanese men, in his time, but he'd never understood a lick of their language. He always had been as dumb as a bag of bricks, if the schoolmarm was to be believed. Hanzo didn't speak English with an accent, though. Was he the first of his family to come to America? A good question for later, he decided as Hanzo took the brick away from his ear, tapped its glowing surface, and tucked it into his pocket.

“So, what’s the plan for this sneaky little shit?” he asked, jerking his thumb towards the painting, still wrapped its innocuous canvas where it sat on the counter. “Bonfire?”

That earned him a fleeting little smile, at least. “Not quite,” Hanzo said. “I’ve been instructed to deliver it to a Mrs. Eileen Fawkes. She’s the person closest to us with the knowledge of how to correctly lay that spirit to rest and cleanse the painting of its taint.”

Jesse perked up. “Instructed? You workin’ for somebody, Shimada?”

Hanzo’s pretty smile twisted into a scowl, his face pinched in annoyance. “No, and I’ll thank you not to imply such. I am no one’s puppet.”

Well. There was a loaded statement if Jesse had ever heard one. “Sure thing,” he said instead, taking several metaphorical steps back from certain death. “Who was that you were talkin’ to, then?”

Hanzo sighed, pushing back what few locks of hair dared escape his terrifyingly neat ponytail. “My grandmother,” he said begrudgingly after a moment of silently glaring at the glass counter as if it was the cause of his unending suffering. “She is...something of an expert.”

“Yeah?” Jesse prompted when Hanzo failed to continue. “You get into this kinda mess a lot?”

“Not in the slightest.” Hanzo straightened up, swiping the once-blank receipt he’d written on off the counter and folding it neatly. “That seems to be a trend started with you.” So saying, he tucked the slip of paper into his pocket and turned on his heel, exiting the area behind the counter to cross the shop and turn the “OPEN” sign around.

“Goin’ somewhere?”

Hanzo locked the front door before he turned back around. “Yes, we are. This is a pressing matter, and we must bring the painting to Mrs. Fawkes with all haste.”

Jesse’s face lit up in a broad grin. He hadn’t expected Hanzo to want to bring him along! “Well, all right, then. Saddle up.” He frowned. “Wait, you ain’t got no horses that I seen. How’re we gettin’ there?”

Jesse wasn’t sure he liked the devilish smile that curled across Hanzo’s face in response to that question.

“Allow me to introduce you to a wonder of the twenty-first century: the horseless carriage.”

\-------

“Hanzo! Turn this thing off, it’s possessed! Folks ain’t meant to move this quick!”

Whipping down the highway at sixty miles an hour, Hanzo laughed--really laughed, complete with tossing his head back. Jesse got the feeling Hanzo hadn’t laughed like that in a long time. “Don’t worry, the car is perfectly under my control,” he said in what was probably meant to be a reassuring tone.

Jesse was not reassured. “Like hell it is! Runaway trains don’t even move this quick, and I should know! I’ve robbed enough of ‘em! Your damn engine’s gonna explode!”

Hanzo laughed again, and if his eyes kept crinkling at the corners like that, well, maybe having the bejesus scared out of him wasn’t so bad, Jesse thought. “My engine isn’t going to explode, McCree. I suggest taking several deep breaths.”

“Deep breaths ain’t gonna do shit! You didn’t tell me your horseless carriage was a death trap!” Despite his objections, Jesse took one deep breath, then another. Then a motorcyclist whipped past the car, its rider helmeted but clad in shorts, sandals, and a T-shirt, and Jesse let out an ungodly shriek. “What the fuck is that? What the fuck? What the _fuck,_ Hanzo? Fuckin’ hell! Stupid fucker ain’t even protected! Not by nothin’! I saw a man killed by a horse bucking him off onto flat stone, and he warn’t even movin’!” He slapped his hands over his eyes, pressing hard enough to turn his fingertips white against his forehead in an attempt to disguise their shaking. “I can’t watch this shit!”

Hanzo snorted. Was he laughing at him? Traitor. “Relax, cowboy. Look at me.”

Relax? Ha! Jesse kept his face safely buried in his hands. “Keep your eyes on the damn road!”

Hanzo hummed his acquiescence, short but not unkind. “Very well. Listen, then.”

“‘M listenin’.”

“I promise you that you are safe with me,” Hanzo said. “It’s Genji you don’t want to ride with. That boy should have been a getaway driver.”

That was.

Well.

“All right. Don’t make me regret trustin’ you, _compadre._ “ Unless Jesse was very much mistaken, that was genuine care in Hanzo’s voice.

“You’re an incorporeal spirit. Even if we did crash, you don’t have a body to be harmed.”

Jesse glowered at him from between his fingers. “I got my gun, don’t I? And my serape, and my hat, and my boots. And my journal. Used to have a pair of gloves, you know that? M’house caught on fire, and the left one burned. That hurt like hell.” As if on cue, his left hand flickered before his very eyes, shifting into a skeletal crisp from his elbow down. Almost before he’d deciphered what it was he was looking at, his arm was back to flesh and blood, normal as ever.

Jesse shivered.

“Where’s the right glove?”

Of course that was what Hanzo focused on. Of course.

“Fuck if I know,” he grumbled, sitting up and letting his hands fall into his lap. “Prob’ly went to some poor soul who needed it more’n me.”

Hanzo fell quiet, then, and Jesse had to resist the urge to look out the window. He wasn’t sure if he was capable of throwing up, but he wasn’t especially keen on finding out.

Then the car swerved, and Hanzo swore, yanking the wheel in front of him to steer them back into their lane. The horseless carriage to their left zoomed by, horn blaring, the driver’s middle finger raised.

“The fuck was that?” Jesse demanded. “I thought you said you had this thing under control!”

“I do!” Hanzo retorted through gritted teeth, his knuckles white where he gripped the wheel.

“Don’t look much like it to me,” Jesse said suspiciously, but...wait.

The car jerked again, and Jesse whipped around, Peacekeeper aimed at the canvas-wrapped painting in the backseat.

Sure enough, the damn thing was doing something, a viscerally discomfiting silhouette crawling out of the painting, its visage hidden beneath the draping cloth.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’re gonna knock that shit the fuck off right the fuck now,” he growled at it. He cocked the hammer, and the writhing shape froze.

The atmosphere in the car grew tense and still, the uneasy calm before a twister, as if something huge and menacing was holding its breath.

“McCree,” Hanzo said, wariness curling around each careful syllable, “what is going on?”

“Piece of shit’s tryin’ to start shit,” Jesse said. “I’m gonna put a bullet in it wherever looks most painful if it tries anythin’ else.” Hopefully, the bullets would work on an amorphous, invisible painting monster, but Jesse reckoned the thing probably wouldn’t have held so still if they wouldn’t.

“Keep an eye on it. We’re about ten minutes out.”

Right. Jesse mentally added “map of everywhere” to the list of Hanzo’s pocket brick’s powers. “Sure thing.”

It had been a long time since Jesse had felt so useful. Almost as long as it had been since he’d last held someone (something?) at gunpoint for reasons other than trespassing in his home.

Several tense moments passed in taut silence, the air stretched too thin between the front seats and the back, and as Hanzo slowed down as he pulled off the highway, the silence seemed to stretch on interminably longer.

_**BOOM.** _

A sound like dynamite blew the already fraught atmosphere sky-high, and Jesse could almost _feel_ Hanzo tense beside him like a steam engine about to blow.

“That came from Mrs. Fawkes’ neighborhood.”

Shit. That couldn’t be good, especially not since Jesse was pretty sure that heavy stiffness in Hanzo’s voice was born of...well, if not fear, then something very close to it. “You reckon this thing’s got friends?”

“I doubt it’s that intelligent.”

Curt, even for Hanzo, Jesse thought, though he didn’t look away from the painting. He knew better. “What, then?”

“There are people who would like my brother and I dead.”

Now, _that_ tempted Jesse sorely to turn around and look at Hanzo, but he resisted. “You think that’s them? Somebody rat out your grandma?” The whys and whos could wait until the situation had been addressed. Right now, Jesse was only concerned with what they’d be walking into.

“It could very well be them, but if we were betrayed, I need to find out by whom.” Hanzo sped up again, and Jesse was fairly certain they weren’t supposed to be going this fast; but he didn’t remark on it. 

“What’s our plan?”

“You stay in the car, with the painting, and I will go investigate.”

That did it. Jesse swiveled around, brows furrowed. “That sounds risky. What happens if somebody gets the drop on you?”

Jesse must have been seeing things, because he could have sworn something moved beneath Hanzo’s left sleeve, sinuous and smooth.

“I should have thought to bring more than my knives, but I will make do with what I have.” Hanzo’s face was cold, carved from marble and entirely shut off.

Jesse didn’t like it. “Why don’t I go in there?” he suggested. “Nobody but you’s handled my gear, so they won’t be able to see me. I can come back and tell you what’s goin’ on and how many they got with ‘em.”

“ _No._ “ Hanzo braked hard, and the painting slammed into the back of Jesse’s seat. “They will sense you, and they will kill you before you even know what’s hit you. My f--these people are highly trained, even in the supernatural.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you don’t want me dead,” Jesse said after a moment’s stunned silence. “Hanzo, I ain’t exactly got a life to risk. What’s the harm in doin’ a little pokin’ around?”

“No,” Hanzo repeated, yanking off his seatbelt. “That’s final. You will stay here, and I will return when I have more information.”

“Hold on, now,” Jesse said. “At least take me with you!”

Hanzo didn’t deign to reply. He simply tucked the journal into the compartment above Jesse’s knees and climbed out of the carriage, palming his knife.

“Hanzo!”

Either Hanzo couldn’t hear him or didn’t care, and it made Jesse’s blood boil. What the fuck was going on? It wasn’t like Hanzo to rush in half-cocked--at least, not from what Jesse knew of him. All he could do, though, was watch Hanzo run up the block to the house that was currently on fire, which, yes, was their intended destination, and he hated it.

To his relief, Hanzo was greeted by an elderly woman who moved far too jauntily to be in any danger, even if the bottom hem of her shirt was smoldering. She gestured enthusiastically as she spoke, and shook Hanzo’s hand so hard even he seemed rattled.

Then the door opened, and a soot-smeared, wild-eyed man brandished a burning boot at him. “Oy, Gran! Shimada’s got a stowaway!”

Jesse’s revolver whipped from the painting to the newcomer. “You ain’t supposed to be able to see me,” he hissed, and the man flashed him a lopsided, gap-toothed grin.

“Ain’t supposed to see a lot of shit,” he said cheerfully, shaking the boot. The flames flashed blue as salt spilled out of the hole scorched into the toe to splash onto Jesse, which, _ow,_ holy fuck.

With a yelp of equal parts surprise, pain, and fury, Jesse’s form disintegrated, leaving his things to pile in a heap on the passenger seat.

Hanzo whipped his head around, bristling with rage, but Eileen spoke first.

“ _Jamison Pleiades Fawkes!_ “

At the sound of his grandmother’s voice, the soot-streaked man jolted upright, straightening to an impressive six-foot-five. “Marm!”

“I’ll thank you not to terrorize our guest’s companion,” she said sternly, peering over her tortoiseshell spectacles at her errant grandchild. “Now, gather the man’s things and bring them into the parlor. Mr. Shimada and I will handle the painting. If I catch you so much as looking cross-eyed at that poor spirit again, I’ll tan your hide.”

Jamison nodded, throwing her a salute and dodging the wooden spoon that came whizzing towards him in retribution for his cheek. He tossed the boot in his hand aside to spill its contents across the pavement, then scooped Jesse’s belongings into his arms and bolted for the still-smoking house before Eileen could throw anything else at him.

“I’m terribly sorry about Jamison, dear,” she sighed, patting Hanzo’s arm. “He’s very excitable.” She looped her arm through Hanzo’s and proceeded to make her way to his car, eyeing the unmoving painting with suspicion.

“So I see,” Hanzo said, sharp eyes following Jamison as he tripped up the front steps, his prosthetic foot catching on torn-up floorboard. He wasn’t sure how he felt about a man whose hair may or may not have been smoking faintly carrying what was essentially the body of someone who’d become surprisingly dear to him over the course of only a day. He wasn’t sure he’d call McCree a _friend,_ exactly, but he was certainly...something. “Is he naturally gifted with the Sight, or is it artificially induced?”

Eileen laughed, patting Hanzo’s arm again. “My Jamison was born with clear eyes,” she said proudly. “He’s seeing a guardian spirit, actually, a protector of travelers. Impish sort of fellow, if you ask me. Bit of a trickster. He likes to ensnare the unwary wanderer and trap them in his ridiculous, giant junkyard. He and Jamison get along like--” She chuckled, nodding to her house, which was somehow unharmed despite being aflame. “--like, well, a house on fire.”

“I wish them all the best,” Hanzo said politely, opening the back door of his car and removing the painting. Now that he was paying proper attention to it, he could feel the spirit within it writhing like an angry snake trapped in a too-small glass jar.

“Crikey, you’re a nasty little bugger, aren’t you?” Eileen lifted the painting from Hanzo’s arms, and it immediately started to roil and surge, its hideous amorphous being emerging anew beneath the canvas.

Hanzo could _feel_ an answering roil in his arm, but he clamped a tight lid on that. Grandmother would never have sent him here if Eileen wasn’t perfectly capable of handling herself.

Eileen tucked the painting under her arm, heedless of the ever-changing shape fighting to get past her torso and out into the world. “Why don’t you come in for a cuppa, Mr. Shimada? While your friend is pulling himself back together, you can tell me a little more about how you two met. Tokuko didn’t tell me you had a restless spirit with you, or I would have warned Jamie.”

Hanzo opened his mouth to correct her, then closed it again. He wasn’t sure whether or not he’d qualify Jesse McCree as his friend, but he didn’t have a better word for it. He hadn’t told Grandmother about him for that reason precisely. McCree didn’t seem to be malevolent, but Hanzo had been so distracted that he hadn’t even asked why McCree was still here, let alone investigated the circumstances of his death. His failure to follow the procedures had made him too ashamed to even tell Grandmother about McCree.

If he was honest with himself, though, that wasn’t the only reason. McCree was good company, someone Hanzo genuinely enjoyed being around. He was sharp and funny and bold as brass, and he’d managed to turn Hanzo’s life into something more than clockwork, something more than measured steps taken and repeated ad nauseam in service of the vague notion of better things to come. Hanzo despised what his father had done to their clan, the selfish bastardization of their divine mission, and he would never forgive the man for what he’d demanded Hanzo do; but in the deepest, darkest corners of his soul, Hanzo wished he’d done it, wished he’d earned his place at his father’s right hand and secured that life for himself. It made him sick to his stomach every time that shameful thought crossed his mind, but he couldn’t deny that he missed the action and excitement of being involved with the very heart of an international ring of supernatural exterminators.

Originally, the Shimada clan had been tasked with the protection of the weak, guardians against the evils of this world and those adjacent to it by the dragons themselves. The dragons had made a covenant with the matriarch of the Shimadas to work together with her and her offspring in their sacred purpose, but men were nothing if not greedy and selfish. Few men were ever blessed with dragons of their own--that honor was reserved almost exclusively for the women of the clan, through whom the blessing was passed down. Over time, however, disgruntled men usurped control of the clan from her matriarchs, and the dragons, bound to obey the head of the Shimada clan by the terms of the covenant, could not aid the women in their struggle to overthrow the usurpers. Once in power, the new leader perverted the laws of the clan, tarnishing a once-noble family and dragging her name through the mud. The survivors of the terrible civil war within the clan were made to serve the usurper in bringing the seamy underbelly of the world to heel, not to restore balance, but to increase his power and secure his position as uncontested king of the crime world. Repulsed by the monsters with whom the new head of the Shimada family now worked hand in hand, the dragons retreated, blessing only one or two with their gift, and with far fewer dragon spirits apiece. Often, they skipped generations entirely.

Hanzo’s father was the only child of his generation born of a Shimada, which would usually mean that child would bear the blessings of the dragons, but they chose to pass over him. Their reasoning had never been so crystal clear to Hanzo as it was when his father gave him that last, fateful command.

Now, following Eileen Fawkes up the front steps of her apparently fireproofed home, Hanzo was faced with another dilemma. The haunted painting had caused a reaction in him that McCree never had, and yet McCree was the stronger spirit, as shown by the painting creature’s fear of him. Why, then, had Hanzo not felt the urge to destroy McCree as he had to destroy the painting, once the truth of its nature had been revealed?

“You’re lagging behind, Mr. Shimada,” Eileen said over her shoulder, stepping neatly over the floorboard her grandson had tripped over. “Come along, now. The house doesn’t bite, I promise.”

Startled out of his reverie and galvanized into action, Hanzo bounded up the stairs, neatly following in her footsteps. “My apologies.” 

Hanzo had no doubt that, as an associate of Grandmother’s, Eileen’s caliber was overkill for such a small-scale haunting, but he hadn’t expected her to toss the painting onto a worktable next to a half-finished prosthetic limb like a sack of potatoes. Her smoldering grandchild was balanced precariously on the arm of the couch, the tip of his prosthetic leg wedged securely in a hole in the fabric as he stretched up towards the ceiling, chasing McCree’s journal while trying to avoid the cowboy boots diving at his head like circling birds of prey whose nest had been invaded. McCree’s serape was constricted around Jamison’s middle, pinning his good arm to his side.

“Mr. Shimada, tell your little friend I ain’t tryin’ to salt ‘im, will ya?”

McCree’s gun belt unwound itself from around Jamison’s leg and slithered rapidly across Eileen’s living room floor to snake up Hanzo’s leg, rattling its spare bullets angrily. The buckle, which seemed to be serving as its head, was facing Jamison, and Hanzo got the distinct feeling it was trying to protect him.

It was almost...sweet.

“If you hadn’t salted him in the first place, perhaps he would still be coherent enough for me to speak with him,” Hanzo said acidly. “As it is, I don’t think I could tell him much of anything if I tried.”

Jamison scowled, but before he could say anything, the lightbulbs popped, throwing sparks and glass; and McCree’s journal skittered across the ceiling to drop demurely into Hanzo’s arms, smug as a cat. His serape unwound gracefully from around Jamison, swimming gracefully through the air like a manta ray, and with one final, vindictive kick, his boots dropped to the ground, spurs clicking as they sauntered after the rest of McCree’s gear to Hanzo, who frowned.

“Where is his hat?”

“‘Is ‘at’s the only thing I managed to catch,” Jamison said, rubbing his arm with his prosthetic left hand as he jerked his right thumb towards the cat carrier in the corner of the room, which was jerking and thumping as its occupant tried to get to Hanzo. “Soon as we got outta view, the damn thing went nuts! Tried to kill me, it did. Your mate’s a right prick, Shimada.” He jerked his leg out of the couch, hopping down onto the floor.

“Awful fond of you, isn’t he?” Eileen remarked, patting the gun belt’s “head.” It tolerated her, which earned a huff of annoyance from her grandson. “How long have you had him?”

“Long enough,” Hanzo said cryptically, because, really, it wasn’t any of her business. The painting was her business, and that, he had already handed over. He was keeping McCree.

“Ain’t you the chatty one,” Jamison said, dodging a kick from McCree’s right boot on his way to the teakettle.

“He’s certainly interesting,” Eileen mused. Hanzo wasn’t sure he liked the way she was eyeing...well, not McCree, because McCree wasn’t technically there to be eyed, but his anchors. “Are you certain he’s dead?”

Hanzo’s gaze snapped to her, sharp and intense. “What makes you say that?”

Eileen tilted her head, dark eyes thoughtful. “He’s a bit sane, for one thing. He’s got to be at least a hundred and forty, judging from that gun of his, but he hasn’t deteriorated at all. Ghosts that age don’t just tag along for a day trip.”

Hanzo’s frown deepened.

“No wounds on ‘im, either,” Jamison interjected. “Well. Nothin’ fatal, anyhow. ‘Is arm’s a fuckin’ crisp, but the rest of ‘im...what you’re seein’ is what’s there. No sign of even the sniffles, either. Ain’t ever met a ghost who I couldn’t tell what killed ‘em.”

“If you don’t think he’s a ghost, then what do you think he is?” Hanzo was already regretting this. He should have just left McCree to watch over the shop.

“Cursed, most likely.” Eileen shrugged, and the teakettle whistled. Behind her, Jamison rattled through the cabinets for mugs. Two of the ones he pulled down had missing or broken handles. “By somethin’ strong, too. It’s a clever thing, made to look like he’s passed on. Wouldn’t want to tangle with whatever done it, myself. Not without Tokuko, at least. I reckon it’s just a mite stronger than me.”

”The hell do you mean, I ain't dead?”

Hanzo spun, his knife whizzing through the air towards the sound of the voice on instinct. It bit into the metal bars of the grate on the cat carrier, eliciting a yelp from its disembodied occupant.

”The fuck?! We've been over this shit! It's just me!” McCree protested, scooting as far away as he could from the knife tip vibrating barely a millimeter from the end of his nose. “You especially oughta knock that off if I ain't actually dead! Y’all better explain what the fuck is goin’ on.” He cleared his throat. “Preferably while you're gettin’ me the fuck outta this thing.” 


End file.
